There once lived, on the northern shores, a lonely man. He had always lived near the ocean bluffs, overlooking the descending levels of seastacks, those great flat-topped islands of rock, carved out of the land from centuries of pounding waves. His days were spent fishing the ocean. He had little to do with the other people in the village nearby, choosing a solitary life for lack of knowing any other way. His only companions, at times, were the sea gulls wheeling overhead or an occasional seal that would surface among the seaweed, search the man's face with it's round, dark eyes, only to slip back into the depths again.

One midsummer evening, the fisherman was returning from the sea. He had worked a longer day, taking advantage of the late sunset and the early rise of a full moon to light his way back. As he approached the first and shortest of the seastacks, marking his way to home shores, the man caught sight of movement on it's surface. As the boat drifted toward the rocks, he heard singing that was sweet, yet wild. After tying his boat to a scrub of a tree, the man slowly climbed up the side of the rock, urged on by the strange melody.

Upon reaching the surface, the man found he was crouching in the shadow of a crag that jutted higher than the rest of the plateau. The man turned, balancing himself against the rock face, to see shining naked figures dancing in the moonlight. As they whirled about, the beings laughed and called to each other between the verses of their song. They were women. Beautiful women with skin that shimmered like starlight. Their lilting voices reached deep inside the man, into places that he had closed off to others all his life. There appeared to be dark shadows on the ground lying near him. As his eyes adjusted to the surroundings, the shadows appeared to have substance. The man reached out toward one... it was soft fur. Seal fur. Without thinking, he quickly stuffed the sealskin into his shirt and in doing so, lost his footing momentarily, sending rocks and pebbles cascading over the cliff. The dancers stopped suddenly, each one dashing toward the sealskins. As the women draped the skins about themselves, they transformed into the shape of seals and plunged off the cliff into the sea. That is, all but one, for there was still one woman searching desperately along the cliff edge of the great rock. She called out in an eerie voice to her companions and their cries in response echoed back from the waters, but these too vanished in time. Finally, all that could be heard was her soft weeping.

The fisherman crept out of the shadows and approached the seal woman. As he first drew near, she appeared terrified. He feared that she would turn and leap into the ocean after the others. He couldn't bear for her to go... she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. The woman drew a breath and stepped forward.

"Please sir"

she pleaded in a voice that sounded like the rippling of waves on the sands,

"Give back to me what is mine."

The man could speak only of his own need.

"Come home with me. Live with me. Be my wife."

The woman continued as though she had not heard him.

"Without my skin, I can never go home to my family or my life beneath the waters," she began to weep again. "I will remain captive in the upper lands of the sun."

But the seal woman seemed so lovely to the man, even in tears. He refused to consider letting her go.

"The others have gone. You are part of my world now."

The man took off his coat and bundled it around her. The woman appealed to him, begged him, but the man simply answered,

"Come now, we'll go home."

He led her down to his boat and after lifting her in, headed toward the shore. The woman never stopped turning to gaze off toward the distant waters until the door of the man's home closed, shutting her inside.

The two lived together many years. The woman gave birth to three children, with whom she would spend most of her time. She avoided the people of the village, not wanting to answer their questioning stares or hear them whisper that she seemed as distant to the fisherman as she was to the villagers. As time passed, the woman's skin became ghostly pale. Her long dark hair lost it's luster, as did her once shining eyes. The woman cared for her family, but would, at times, slip down to the sea. There, they would find her, standing out on the rocks, calling in a mournful voice to the seals that slipped about in the water.

One night, the children were awakened by angry words. Their father's gruff voice whispered fiercely,

"When will you stop talking about this. It's been years now."

"Life is ebbing away from me. I need my skin back," the woman begged.

But the man had never admitted to having locked away the sealskin. Instead he answered,

"And if you had this sealskin, would you just abandon your family? What kind of mother are you? A bad one, I daresay."

The women's gaze fell, to stare at the floor of the cottage.

"I don't know. I only know that I cannot go on living as someone other than who I am. I need my skin back. It is a part of me."

The man yelled, "You care only for yourself! What of me?"

Then he stormed out, slamming the door, leaving the woman to weep alone.

Three children climbed down from the sleeping loft and wrapped their arms around their mother.

"Don't cry, mother," said the oldest, "Father will be back. We will make you smile till then."

And then, at the urging of the oldest, the children began to sing a song their mother had taught them about the sea and dance about the room. The woman could not help but smile, which only encouraged her young to sing louder and dance with abandon. The two younger children careened into each other and the wall all at once, sending a high shelf crashing down on top of them. Their mother leaped to their aid.

"Are you alright?"

"We're fine." they answered laughing, shaking years of dust off of themselves.

The oldest stepped around the others and over the board that had fallen to get a look at what had toppled down off the high shelf.

"What's in this old wooden box." The boy kneeled down on the floor, fingering the overturned object. "There's a lock on it."

"I don't know" answered his mother, "I have never been able to reach up to that shelf, not even from the chair."

The woman bent down, reaching out to upright what appeared to be a long shallow wooden chest. As she lifted it, bottom side up, the lid broke off and the contents fell out to the floor.

"Oh, look!" Cried the youngest, "It's a fur."

The three children fell upon the pelt, stroking the hide and guessing what it was from.

"It's from a bear," said one.

"No, it's a seal," said the other.

The youngest buried her face in the fur and said,

"It smells like mother."

Three small heads turned to look up at their mother, questioning.

The woman stood, silent, barely breathing. She could not hear the children, just now. Instead, she heard the crashing of waves and the singing of whales. She reached out toward the sealskin and the children all lifted the fur up to their mother.

"Ohhh," she sighed, clutching her sealskin to her chest.

Then the woman held the pelt up to her face and breathed in the scent of the ocean air. She no longer saw the cottage before her, but rather saw images of sunlight filtering through waving seaweed, dolphins leaping in ocean spray. The children interrupted her reverie.

"Mother, what is it?"

"It is time for me to go home, dear ones," she said.

"You are home." insisted the eldest.

"No, I must leave."

The three children became still. She kneeled down and spoke gently to them.

"If I stay, I cannot thrive. I am a prisoner on the land. You know I have told you that my real home is in the sea. I love you... and I will always be with you in my heart."

The woman turned and headed toward the door.

The children cried, "Mother, don't go!"

She paused and turned in the open doorway.

"When you need me, listen for my voice at the edge of the sea."

And then the woman fled into the night, clutching her sealskin.

Moments later, the fisherman returned home. He was met by his three children, standing in the doorway of the cottage in their nightclothes.

"Mother has gone," they cried.

Their father looked past them and seeing the broken chest on the floor, yelled,

"Wait inside!" and he ran off toward the bluffs edge.

The man reached the cliff overlooking the ocean just in time to see a seal dive off a rock, into the sea. He shouted to her, yelling over and over into the night, but his voice could not be heard over the crashing of the great waves, breaking against the rocks.

The fisherman never saw the seal woman again. But is said by the villagers in that area that the fisherman's children could often be seen sitting on the rocks,at the shores edge. It seemed that the three of them would be seen laughing and singing with what appeared to be a female seal. In time this seal became known as a guardian of the Bay and no one would harm her. They could always tell which one she was, for she had lustrous dark fur and eyes that shine.